DERBY POETRY FESTIVAL
OCTOBER 2ND - 6TH 2024
Check out this year's lineup of events, read about our guests and get your tickets below
WEDNESDAY 2ND OCTOBER 2024
YOUTH SHOWCASE
Join Derby Poetry Festival for the opening showcase at Quad, featuring performances from the young people involved with Derby Poetry Festival activity. Members of our youth group, young producers and school project come together to kick off the festival in style.
THURSDAY 3RD OCTOBER 2024
DERBY POETRY FESTIVAL
X BAD BETTY LIVE
Join Derby Poetry Festival and Bad Betty for this National Poetry Day Special, with a live band and poetry. For this NPD collaboration, we bring you poet and musician Joshua Idehen (Songbook, Bad Betty 2024), writer and theatre-maker Jemima Foxtrot (A New Game Burning Eye Books 2022) and Nottingham legend Georgina Wilding (Hag Stone, Verve 2022).
The evening will be BSL interpreted by SIGN4U
The evening will be followed by a late-night Cypher, an opportunity for anyone and everyone to grace the stage and share on and off the mic, share a poem and close out NPD in style. This will also be hosted at The Old Bell Hotel.
![Museum of Making and the River Derwent [c] Derby Museums 2021 (2).jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/9a9d81_d702c014734a40e6828a4182c2a1742e~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_486,h_324,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/9a9d81_d702c014734a40e6828a4182c2a1742e~mv2.jpg)
FRIDAY 4TH OCTOBER 2024
FIRST FRIDAYS: DERBY POETRY FESTIVAL POETRY SLAM
Returning to the Museum of Making for the second time, Derby Poetry Festival presents the annual Adult Slam, hosted by Derby Museums.
Often referred to simply as ‘Slam’, a Poetry Slam is a competitive form of Poetry, participants write on any topic they chose and are scored on their writing and performance as well as their ability to keep to a set time limit, with a winner walking away with the title.
SATURDAY 5TH OCTOBER 2024
DERBY POETRY FESTIVAL HEADLINE EVENT
For our headline event, Derby Poetry Festival welcomes Roger Robinson, Mary Jean Chan, Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan and Jasmine Gardosi to The Wardwick, at Derby Museum and Art Gallery, for what is sure to be an incredible evening of poetry and performance.
Roger Robinson is The Critically Acclaimed Author Of A Portable Paradise, a stirring collection which won both the T.S. Eliot Prize and The Royal Society Of Literature Ondaatje Prize in 2019 and 2020 respectively.
Mary Jean Chan is the author of Flèche (Faber & Faber, 2019), which won the Costa Book Award for Poetry. Bright Fear (Faber, 2023). Chan's second book, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection and the Writers' Prize, and is currently shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize.
Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan is a poet and writer whose work disrupts assumptions about history, race, violence and knowledge. She is the author of Tangled in Terror and the poetry collection Postcolonial Banter; a co-author of A FLY Girl’s Guide to University; and a contributor to the anthologies Cut from the Same Cloth? and I Refuse to Condemn. Her writing has also featured in The Guardian and Al Jazeera, and her poetry has been viewed millions of times online.
Jasmine Gardosi is the Birmingham Poet Laureate and Honorary Doctor of Letters. She is a multiple slam champion, beatboxer, winner of the Out-Spoken Prize for Poetry and winner of the Saboteur Award for Best Spoken Word Performer 2023.
SUNDAY 6TH OCTOBER 2024
THE CREATIVE WRITING BREAKFAST CLUB X DERBY POETRY FESTIVAL
Derby Poetry Festival and Laurie Bolger’s The Creative Writing Breakfast Club team up for a Sunday Morning Digital Workshop that's sure to get the creative juices flowing. The Creative Writing Breakfast Club, as featured in Time Out, is a Free Flow Creative Writing hour with writer Laurie Bolger. This session is about letting your creativity lead the way, and generating new and exciting writing in your own unique style.
SUNDAY 6TH OCTOBER 2024
WORKSHOP: SOUNDS OF WORDS / WORDS OF SOUNDS WITH WILL HARRIS
Derby Poetry Festival presents a digital workshop with Will Harris. For two hours we'll be playing with - and stretching - the links between objects, words and sounds. From the comfort of our own homes, we'll share stories, learn to listen closely to things, and stay as connected as we can to the nonsense within. You’re sure to have fun and create something marvellous.
DPF PRESENTS WORD WISE X SHE SPEAKS WITH KIM ADDONIZIO, VANESSA KISUULE, AMY ACRE & CECILIA KNAPP
It's the finale of the 2024 festival, and we're proud to say we're going out with a bang! Join us for a digital showcase with internationally renowned poets Cecilia Knapp, Amy Acre, Vanessa Kisuule and Kim Addonizio. This is guaranteed to be an event for the ages, and you don't even have to leave your house to be there! The perfect end to an awesome weekend.